Showing posts with label Conventional Farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conventional Farming. Show all posts

Friday, November 12, 2021

Farmers on the Canadian prairies set fire to their fields - are they placing their reputation as "stewards of the land" on the line?

by Larry Powell
SHOAL LAKE, MANITOBA, CANADA: As dedicated, well-meaning people gathered in Scotland to find ways to counter our climate crisis, farmers on the Canadian prairies were waging a "scorched earth" war on their fields.  By taking advantage of severe drought that has rendered those fields tinder-dry, they were able to effectively burn down marsh-plants - mostly cattails in and around wetlands diminished by that same drought. 
Farmers commonly use specially-fitted quads like this to light fires on their land. 
PinP photos. 

Dozens of such fires could be spotted each day for many days this fall in the vicinity of my own community in southwestern Manitoba, too.

So, do they really "get" the adage, "Think globally. Act locally?" 

You be the judge.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

A Mysterious Fungal Infection, Spans the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy


The New York Times
The Candidida aurus fungus. A CDC image.

The rise of Candida auris embodies a serious and growing public health threat: drug-resistant germs. More here.

RELATED?


Monday, May 1, 2017

Have crop shelter belts outlived their usefulness? Modern agriculture has spoken - they have.

Are trees now passé in our modern agricultural landscape? Please check out my brief video, below on the era of crop "shelter belts," now disappearing from the scene.
As always, you are urged to add your own two-bits worth in the comments section, below.


Monday, July 25, 2016

Manitoba Growers Warned of Spreading Glyphosate Resistant Kochia

THEWESTERN
PRODUCER
Photo by WildBoar
A map will show where glyphosate resistant kochia has been found in Manitoba. Story here.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Hog Barn Fire ‘Could Have Been Much Worse’

THE WESTERN
PRODUCER
A hog farm north of Leroy, Sask., is redistributing its stock after a June 18 inferno demolished two barns. Story here. 

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Fusarium Head Blight No Longer Just a Manitoba Problem

Manitoba Co-Operator

Producers across the Prairies need to manage to minimize their risk of fusarium, a serious and costly disease of cereal crops. Story here.



RELATED: "Field of Nightmares." 

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Big Farm Groups Adopt the "Ostrich Approach" to Major Environmental Issues.

by Larry Powell

It has been exactly two weeks since I contacted Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP), Manitoba's main farm lobby group, to comment on my story, "New Studies Show Farm Chemicals Are Affecting More Than Bees. Bird Populations are Declining, Too. Is modern agriculture's toxic hold on nature becoming a death grip?" 

(It appeared both on this blog on July 30th and subsequently in the Virden Empire Advance weekly. A number of other publications declined to publish.) 

I reported on new research showing that insecticides, widely used on crops in this province and elsewhere, were associated with declines in populations of birds which eat insects. The chemicals, members of the "neonicotinoid" family, are the same ones which have, for some time, also been linked to large and significant declines in populations of pollinators, especially honeybees. 

Purple Martins. 
Among the "insectivorious" 
birds on the decline. Larry Powell - PinP photo.

The vast majority of conventional farmers, many who belong to KAP, sow seeds treated with "neonics," described as the most widely-used insecticide in the world.

My e-mail asked whether KAP, which describes itself as "Manitoba's general farm policy organization," feels any sense of responsibility for what seem to be escalating problems with the toxicity of the products in question.

I addressed my request to no less than six officials of the farm organization. 

Not one has responded!

I made the same request of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA), which claims to be "a voice for 200,000 farm families at the national level." 

Like KAP, CFA did not respond, either!

What are Canadians to make of this; That the producers they represent do not care about the environment? 

I find this hard to believe. I've known many farmers over the years who claim to take their role as "stewards of the land" very seriously, indeed. 

So, are these organizations not doing justice to their members? 

Until they come clean and begin publicly confronting pressing issues such as this, head-on, I guess we'll all just have to keep wondering...

-30-

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Phosphorus and Freedom - The Libertarian Fantasy

By PAUL KRUGMAN - New York Times - AUG. 10, 2014

In the latest Times Magazine, Robert Draper profiled youngish libertarians — roughly speaking, people who combine free-market economics with permissive social views — and asked whether we might be heading for a “libertarian moment.” Well, probably not. Polling suggests that young Americans tend, if anything, to be more supportive of the case for a bigger government than their elders. But I’d like to ask a different question: Is libertarian economics at all realistic?
The answer is no. And the reason can be summed up in one word: phosphorus.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Food Crisis Fears Prompt UN Wake-Up Call to World Leaders

UN Conference on Trade & Development

Wake up before it is too late: Make agriculture truly sustainable now for food security in a changing climate. Full story here.

Read Guardian story here.

Later is too late’: seniors show up for climate across Canada

Canada's National Observer Seniors across Canada attended “rocking chair rallies,” marches, movie nights, town halls and other protests ...